Second row for Crutchlow, talks Ducati rumours

Cal Crutchlow narrowly missed out on the front row at Indy and after qualifying he commented that it was disappointing to once again miss out on the front row. This will be Crutchlow’s fourth start of the year from the front of the second row and having missed out by just 0.022s on third he can be forgiven for being disappointed.

While his pace in qualifying was impressive FP4 was more of a struggle. This is the session that teams use to test race settings and today Crutchlow felt the team went in the wrong direction with their setup and it cost them time during the 30 minute session.

“I definitely wanted to improve in FP4, and we made a step in what I felt was the wrong direction, but we had to stick with it and see the session out,” said Crutchlow. “We need to gain some time in a few areas, but I’m quite confident for tomorrow’s race. The hard tire, we have some issues with in certain points of the track, but we need to work on that, because Marc has such a massive advantage to everyone else at the moment.

“Also Dani is really really fast, because he did the whole FP4 on a used tire from the morning, and he was nearly as fast as Marc on average lap time. So we need to improve, definitely, but it seems to me to be quite a big bunch of guys on a similar lap time. But I’m disappointed to be fourth, that’s for sure, because I’ve had about four or five fourth places this year already, I haven’t been on the front row yet.”

Crutchlow has been linked with a surprise return to Ducati for next year with the Pramac squad and today he refused to deny that he has been talking with the team.

“Obviously they’re great friends of mine. I don’t know, of course, I left on great terms, it’s obvious at the moment I’m speaking to everybody. Could it happen? Of course it could happen. Will it happen? I don’t know. We’ll soon see. Maybe we’ll see tonight…”